Twin Sisters

CinemaSerf

Just before the rise of Nazi-ism took hold in Germany, two sisters are orphaned by the death of their mother. "Anna" (ultimately Gudrun Okras) is taken in by her rather puritanical aunt and uncle whilst sister "Lotte" (ultimately Ellen Vogel) contracts TB and is relocated to a more affluent home in the Netherlands. Aside from a brief reconciliation at the start of the war, the two women lead completely divergant lives and the film now takes us on their respective ox-bow lives. "Anna" marries a German soldier whom she is convinced is no evil-doer throughout their marriage, whilst her sister has to sit out the war in an occupied nation whilst she has married a musician who just happens to be a Jew. Clearly, both women are left scarred by the effects of the war but is there any chance that they will ever meet again, and if they do can they manage to get over decades of steadily accrued emotional baggage? Though it takes it's time, this film, there are two really quite interesting chronologies laid out for us here, and with each character being played by different actors at different stages of their lives it gives us a chance to refresh the storyline periodically and build their dramatic personae into characterful people who have a depth to them that resonates as a turbulent history evolves around them. There's an intimacy to the photography and to the scoring, and the design of the production delivers the changing timelines consistently well as we build to quite an emotionally charged conclusion. I suppose there is an element of predictability to this, but then again nothing quite plays out as I expected and along the way it does illustrate just how complex life in post-war Europe could be and at how difficult forgiveness can actually be - even when the spirit is willing.